Artists

Pieter Bruegel the Elder

Pieter Brueghel the Elder was born in the Dutch province around 1525 to 1530 (that's what you do not know). His nickname was de Droll (the Drollige). Not much is known about his life. Actually, one only knows that he was a pupil of the painter Pieter Coecke van Aelst and worked for Hieronymus Cook, a famous Antwerp engraver. In 1563 he married Mayken Coecke, a daughter of his teacher. The couple lived in Brussels and got two sons, Pieter and Jan. Both of them also became painters and later continued their father's work. Pieter Brueghel, who died in Brussels in 1569, was a master of Flemish landscape painting and founded the peasant genre in Dutch art.